January Firm Determinations Update

At the beginning of 2010 I made a few Firm Determinations. I am very excited about my progress in some areas, and just a little disappointed about my lack of progress in others. Here is how I’ve done with my Financial, Health, Faith, and Blog FD’s.

Finances
Save $5000 towards student loan repayment by May – We have saved $2.250.00 towards this goal. That’s 45%, so we are way ahead.
Increase Emergency Fund by one month’s living expenses by May – We have saved $110.00 towards this goal, which is just over 5% (you can do the math). We are a little behind on this, but I’m not worried because we’ll receive $1500 rebate in our taxes for energy efficient upgrades (our air conditioner died).
Open a Roth IRA with retirement money in Money Market Account – We are still looking into this. I have the option of opening one up with the same people who do our company’s 401K so I’m going to set up a meeting within the next few months.
Reevaluate goals in May 2010 – this is one FD we are looking forward too!

Health
Hmm. I really thought that this would be one of the easier categories for me. But it ended up being the worse one.

Run/log 600 miles – I only logged 4 miles this month. That doesn’t even come close to the 50 miles a month it will take to fulfill this FD. I don’t have an excuse except that it has been freakishly cold in Texas.
Ride my new bike to work 24 times – I did not ride my bike one time in January, which is obviously short of the 2 times a week I need for this FD. I’m expecting this to pick up once it starts staying above freezing at night.
Do back exercises/stretches 3 times a week – I’ve done my back exercises and stretches an average of 1 time a week. I saw results from the few times I did this. This will increase when my running increases.
Try one new meatless meal a month – I honestly forgot all about this FD until I sat down to write this update. But here’s a picture of the yummy chicken fajitas the three of us ate last night.

Faith
Volunteer to lead college small group once a month – I completely blew this one away this month. I volunteered to lead 3 of the 4 times we met. And it wasn’t that bad.
Spend time with children from bus ministry once a month – This is one of the FD’s I’m most disappointed with not fulfilling. I will have to schedule in a Saturday to do a home visit for February.
Spend 3 hours a week reading and studying my bible – I struggled with whether or not to include our Sunday and Tuesday college bible study and Sunday small group bible study in this. In the end, I decided to count 30 minutes for each. I ended up averaging a little under 3 hours each week.

Blog
Post a new article once a week – I didn’t technically meet this goal. I posted a total of 4 times in January, but I went an entire week without posting anything.
Track all of my input/output and share it once a month – I successfully tracked everything in a spreadsheet. My next post will give you the tally for each of the following items tracked for January:

Income/Expenses
Food/Exercise
Spiritual Growth/Live Missionally

Like I said, I fell short in some areas and excelled in others. It may take me all year to have a completely successful month, but I am still optimistic.

What about you…how have you progressed towards fulfilling your Firm Determinations? Have you reevaluated or modified your goals?

Free Stuff

Has anyone else come across the Money Crashers Site lately?

Wow.

They are currently hosting one of the largest giveaways I have ever seen on a blog. A few of the prizes listed on their website include $9,200 worth of cash, gift cards, and prizes like an Amazon Kindle, an 8GB Ipod Touch, a consultation with a CFP, and a virtual truckload of personal finance books and magazines.

There are almost as many ways to enter as there are prizes. A few of the easier ways to enter are signing up for their mailing list (1 entry) or their RSS feed (15 entries) and writing a blog post about the contest (30 entries, 2 blog post limit). For the more creative entrant, write a personal finance haiku on Twitter (10 entries, with the top 5 haikus earning 15 additional entries).  

Money Crashers will perform a random drawing on February 3, 2010 so if you want a fighting chance, head on over quickly and enter as many ways as you can. Good luck if you decide to enter, and hopefully I'll have an exciting reason to post on Wednesday.  ;-)

Financial Lesson from Glee...

...or at least from talking about Glee. 

Cousin DFx40 and I watch Glee together every week.  I told him that I would love to have the soundrackthat was out. He informed me that the show had a second volume out too. He went on to tell me that soundtracks of any kind are his weakness. He knows as soon as almost any soundtrack comes out, and he has to give himself a limit of 2 weeks to buy them. By the time the 2 weeks are over, the newness has worn off and he rarely ends up buying it. How awesome that he has discovered something that will help him with his finances for the rest of his life! To be successful financially (and in life) we have to realize two things. 

What works for me doesn't work for everyone. 
Mr. DFx40 prefers get up at 5am every morning and run 8 miles before the day even starts. If he waits until 5pm he is not going to run. F.I.L. DFx40 prefers to eat breakfast and be awake for an hour or two first.  If he gets up at 5am it is only because his dogs woke him up. Some of us can hang out at the mall for 4 hours on a Saturday and end up buying one $10 shirt that we have been looking at for a month. Some of us can't drive past the mall without going in and spending $100 on something we don't even want. 

I have to work on what doesn't come naturally. 
Brother DFx40 was born with a very active metabolism, and has to work very hard to gain weight.  Aunt DFx40 was born with a very inactive metabolism has to work very hard to not gain weight. Brother DFx40 can't lift weights once a week and expect to gain a lot of muscle any more than Aunt DFx40 can eat a salad once a week and expect to lose weight. Some of us find it easy to cook meals at home, but can't bear the thought of giving up cable. Some of us haven't had cable in years, but can't imagine making a grilled cheese sandwich.

These two things are not reasons for us to make excuses. We just need to realize that we all have strengths and weakness, and we have to work with what we've been given. I don't have a problem with tracking my spending (I love Excel), giving freely to others, or saving money. I do have to be careful in stores that sell yarn, in any store if I'm upset, or driving by a restaurant on my way home from work. 

What about you...what have you discovered that works for you? What things do you have to work on?